JSPS Joint Project Professor Donald Kurtz Jeremiah Horrocks Institute University of Central Lancashire Project title: "Magnetic activities of the Sun and the stars probed by the new- generation oscillation data" This was a multifaceted project involving collaborators at several institutions. All of the projects involved asteroseismology and the interaction of stellar pulsations with magnetic fields. Sub-projects included: 1. The measurement of the solar radius based on seismic investigation carried out by Dr Masao Takata of the University of Tokyo and Prof. Douglas Gough of the University of Cambridge. 2. An investigation of dynamics in stellar atmospheres based on spectroscopic observations of line profile variations. This was carried out with observations obtained with the Japanese 8-m Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, by Profs Donald Kurtz and Hiromoto Shibahashi of the University of Tokyo, and included collaboration with Prof. Hideyuki Saio of Tohoku University and Prof. Simon Jeffery of Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland. 3. Asteroseismology with high-precision photometry was the major focus of the collaboration between Profs Kurtz and Shibahashi, primarily using data from the NASA Kepler Space Mission, but also using ground-based observations obtained by Kurtz in Chile. The projects under this theme included many collaborators in the UK, Japan and internationally, as can be seen from the papers published. 4. The investigation of magnetic activity of solar-like stars carried out by Dr Takashi Sekii of the National Observatory of Japan working with members of the Birmingham Solar Oscillation network group. The collaboration between Kurtz and Shibahashi dates back to 1984 when Kurtz was first invited to visit the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo by Shibahashi (neither was a professor then). Over the decades there have been several JSPS and Royal Society fellowships. Funds awarded: 2.5 million yen /yr x 2yr = 5 million yen This was used to cover travel to UK for Prof. Shibahashi and Drs Takata and Sekii for research, and also for meetings to Hungary, Australia, France, China and Poland. Matching funding from the UK: Profs Shibahashi and Kurtz had a £12000 Royal Society UK-Japan collaboration program award from 2010- 2012 Prof. Kurtz had a £2000 UK JSPS London Furusato Award in 2013 Kurtz visited Japan under these various grants in 2012 July 1-7, November 16- December 1 and 2013 October 3-26, including funding from a JSPS Invitation Fellowship Prof. Gough visited Japan 2012 November 5-December 19 Results from the collaborations started and continued under this JSPS funding and associated grants include: 1. In collaboration with Kurtz’s PhD student, Simon Murphy, we showed that there is no Nyquist frequency limitation to the study of all pulsation frequencies in Kepler Space Mission Long Cadence data. These frequencies are the fundamental data of asteroseismology and this paper opens up thousands of stars to asteroseismic analysis that were previously thought to have insuperable ambiguities. Taking account of the huge cost of the Kepler mission, we say our discovery is important not only in opening a new prospect in scientific achievements but also in financially efficient usage of a resource in big science. Coupled with the results of the next study, this may lead to the discovery of new exoplanets by novel means we developed. Refereed publication: Super-Nyquist asteroseismology with the Kepler Space Telescope: Murphy, Simon J.; Shibahashi, Hiromoto; Kurtz, Donald W., 2013, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), 430, 2986-2998 This work was carried out during joint visits between Japan and the UK funded by a Royal Society UK-Japan International Joint Project for Kurtz and Shibahashi, funded for £11520 for two years, 2010 – 2012, and by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Japan-UK Joint Research Program for Shibahashi and Kurtz for two years, 2012-2013. 2. We invented a new method to measure stellar radial velocities directly from photometric light curves by understanding the light travel time effects on the Fourier transform of stellar pulsation signals. This obviates the need for expensive and time-consuming acquisition and measurement of stellar spectra. We showed an example using Kepler Space Mission data of a hierarchical quintuplet stellar system with a pulsating star where we were able to derive the “mass function” to far better precision than a team working with spectra from some of the world’s largest telescopes. Our new technique has the capability to detect exoplanets and stellar-mass black holes that are not detectable by other means. Refereed publication: FM stars: a Fourier view of pulsating binary stars, a new technique for measuring radial velocities photometrically: Hiromoto Shibahashi and Donald W. Kurtz, 2012, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), 422, 738-752 This work was carried out during joint visits between Japan and the UK funded by a Royal Society UK-Japan International Joint Project for Kurtz and Shibahashi, funded for £11520 for two years, 2010 - 2012. 3. In collaboration with the “UltraCam” team we discovered a new type of pulsating white dwarf star that can elucidate the chameleon-like changes of cooling white dwarf stars from helium to hydrogen to helium atmosphere stars as they cool. These new stars are a probable new class of pulsating white dwarfs that will help to measure of the important thicknesses of the atmospheric hydrogen layer. This work was the successful observational culmination of a theoretical prediction by Shibahashi that such stars should exist. UltraCam is a state-of-the-art UK photometer that we attached to the European Southern Observatory New Technology 3.5-m telescope (ESO NTT) and to the UK Northern Hemisphere Observatory 4-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) for highly competitive observing time awarded to our consortium with Kurtz as principal investigator. Refereed publication: Hot DAVs: a probable new class of pulsating white dwarf stars: D. W. Kurtz, H. Shibahashi, V. S. Dhillon, T. R. Marsh, S. P. Littlefair, C. M. Copperwheat , B. T. Gaensicke and S. G. Parsons, 2013, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), tmp, 1215 The above work was an advance on our first refereed publication on this subject: A search for a new class of pulsating DA white dwarf stars in the DB gap: D. W. Kurtz, H. Shibahashi, V. S. Dhillon, T. R. Marsh and S. P. Littlefair, 2008, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), 389, 1771-1779 This first paper was the result of the observational campaigns led by Kurtz that were motivated by Shibahashi’s theoretical prediction of the existence of the new class of pulsators: The DB gap and pulsations of white dwarfs: Shibahashi, H., 2005, Shibahashi H., 2005, in Alecian G., Richard O., Vauclair S., eds, EAS Publ. Q26 Ser. Vol. 17, p. 143 This work was carried out during joint visits between Japan and the UK funded by a Royal Society UK-Japan International Joint Project for Kurtz and Shibahashi, funded for £11520 for two years, 2010 - 2012. This was the primary project for this grant. 4. We have worked together for more than 25 years on studies of the rapidly oscillating Ap (roAp) stars. Kurtz discovered this class of stars in the early 1980s, and Shibahashi led many theoretical developments in our understanding of pulsation in the presence of strong magnetic fields. Using the unprecedented precision of the Kepler Mission data we discovered an roAp star, KIC 10195926, in the Kepler field and used a study of its pulsations to show for the first time that the influence of the strong, global magnetic field and the influence of rotation combine to give rise to different pulsation axes for different modes. Prior to Kurtz’s discovery of the roAp stars it was thought that pulsating stars had pulsation axes coincident with their rotation axes. Kurtz showed that the pulsation is along the magnetic axis, which is oblique to the pulsation axis in these stars in 1982, then Shibahashi, in collaboration with Hideyuki Sao (Tohoku University and University of Tokyo) and Masao Takata (University of Tokyo), developed and expanded our theoretical understanding of this. Later work by Wojtek Dziembowski (Warsaw) and Lionel Bigot (Nice) predicted the possibility that mode axes could be different for different modes, and with this work we confirmed that prediction. We also discovered a low frequency close to half the rotational frequency of the star that we modelled as a first-ever observation of a toroidal pulsation mode seen in a star. This novel idea is still to be tested. Refereed publication: The first evidence for multiple pulsation axes: a new rapidly oscillating Ap star in the Kepler field, KIC 10195926: D. W. Kurtz, M. S. Cunha, H. Saio, L. Bigot, L. A. Balona, V. G. Elkin, H. Shibahashi, I. M. Brandao, K. Uytterhoeven, S. Frandsen, S. Frimann, A. Hatzes, T. Lueftinger, M. Gruberbauer, H. Kjeldsen, J. Christensen- Dalsgaard and S. D. Kawaler, 2011, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), 414, 2550-2566 5. One of the brightest of the roAp stars discovered by Kurtz, the naked-eye star gamma Equulei, shows spectral line variations that had been interpreted as arising from rotational non-radial modes. But the star is known to have almost no rotation - it takes about one century to rotate once - hence the rotational explanation cannot be correct. We developed a model of supersonic pulsational shock waves that gives spectral line variations in good agreement with the observations. This is a realm of astrophysics - supersonic pulsations in stars - that is not previously well studied. Refereed publication: Shock Waves and Line-Profile Variation in roAp Stars: Hiromoto Shibahashi, Douglas Gough, Donald W. Kurtz, Eiji Kambe, 2008, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ), 60, 63-76 6.